To say I love you
by MelimeGreenleaf
Summary: Jack keeps getting letters in Ancient from Daniel, and asks Jacob to help him translate. The results are not what he expected.


It started as a prank, another provocation between them. Or Jack thought that was what the messages Daniel was sending him meant. From small notes to letters, Daniel sent daily at least a couple of messages written in Ancient. Of course Jack was trying to decipher each one, but Daniel was the foremost expert in the language on Earth, and possibly on the entire galaxy excluding the own Ancients. And Daniel was careful enough to leave his work notes out of the Colonel's reach. The only way he would have to translate them would be to ask for Daniel's notes or ask one of his assistants for help, and in no way Jack would admit defeat like that.

The truth was that Jack was much smarter than he pretended to be, but not enough to decipher messages written by an expert without any clues. So for weeks he pretended to ignore what Daniel was doing, until he found an opportunity to ask for help from someone without the linguist knowing. And the opportunity had finally presented itself in the form of Jacob Carter, who had come to visit Sam and agreed to help Jack. They sat in a secluded area of the cafeteria while Jacob carefully analyzed the stack of papers that Jack had given him.

"Jack, I told you my knowledge of Ancient, as well as Selmak's, is quite limited. I can't translate more than a few lone words, or have a general notion of more than one or two sentences." He said hesitantly.

"All right, anything you can tell me that I can rub in Daniel's face helps." He said rubbing his hands in anticipation.

"Uhm, you said that Daniel wrote this for you? The same Dr. Daniel Jackson I know?" He asked cautiously, as if he was hiding something.

"No, another Dr. Daniel Jackson who is also an expert in Ancient and has a questionable sense of humor. What is wrong, Jacob?"

Jacob paused for a moment, pondering what he should do. Unless he had made a terrible mistake in translation, he was too old to deal with it.

"You really should speak with Dr. Jackson about it."

"I can't ask him what it means! That would be admitting defeat. Come on, Jacob. What's wrong? What the hell Daniel wrote that you don't wanna tell me?"

"I really don't know all that much about Ancient, I have only a vague idea of what some of these messages mean, and others I don't understand a word. You should speak with Dr. Jackson about it, maybe outside of the base."

Now Jack was starting to get worried. What could have Daniel written that had left Jacob like this? It was just a prank, wasn't it? He thought for a moment that maybe he didn't wanna know, but curiosity was stronger. It couldn't be anything that bad, could it?

"It's Daniel we're talking about, what could he have written that is so bad?"

Jacob rubbed his eyes. He was definitely too old for this. Having to use Selmak's knowledge to translate the content of those messages was absurd, but Jack wouldn't stop until he knew, so it was better just to say it.

"This letter here has some interesting metaphors, all about the idea of home." He said while holding one of the letters, and picking up another, continued. "This one again explores the idea of home, but it's a little more concrete, something about a scholar who found his home with a warrior."

Jack frowned. Scholar and a warrior? Daniel couldn't be writing about...

"This appears to be a declaration of love, again dealing with a scholar and a warrior." Jacob continued, interrupting Jack's line of thought. "Many of them follow the same line, some of the notes simply say 'I love you'." Jacob cleared his throat. "And this... I can't understand most of the words, but this one... this one is definitely 'copulate'."

Jack choked on his coffee. "You said...?"

"I suggest you pretend you never asked me about these letters and talk with Dr. Jackson about it."

Jack thanked through his teeth and picked up the letters, carelessly crushing them between his fingers. His blood boiled. He needed to find Daniel.

Daniel was working in his office, as he usually did when he wasn't on a mission. When Jack opened the door violently and locked it behind him, Daniel frowned at his odd behavior. "Jack...?"

"I disabled the cameras in this room, and they will stay that way until the system restarts at midnight." Jack stated approaching him aggressively.

Daniel practically jumped up, placing the table between them. "Jack, what's happening?"

Jack threw the letters on the floor and Daniel recognized them immediately. Two case scenarios, either Jack was tired of the joke, or he had discovered what was written in them.

"I spoke to Jacob today about these letters."

"Oh, you showed them to Jacob? Why would you do that?" He asked terrified.

"He told me some interesting things about what you wrote. Want a chance to explain?"

The second scenario, then. Daniel considered for a moment his chances of getting past Jack and escape, but between him and the door there were the table and Jack. He also considered whether it would be possible to call for help, but the walls were thick and his office, isolated. Whatever happened he would have to face it. "I can explain."

"I'm listening."

"It was just a prank, I swear! I just thought it would be funny, since you have the Ancient gene. Just a prank, just that, I didn't even pay attention to what I was writing, it was just..."

Jack reached out and grabbed him, closing his fist on Daniel's shirt tight enough to give him the support needed to make Daniel circle the table.

"Try again."

"Uhm, I was copying files that could be in the depository of the Ancients in an attempt to awaken some latent memory."

Jack pushed him towards the wall, slowly, but too hard for him to escape. "Wrong answer."

"It's a wordplay and if you read it upside down it means something else?" Not even he believed in himself, so he didn't understand why Jack was giving him more rope to hang himself.

Jack slammed his palm on the wall next to Daniel's head and left it there. "Last chance."

Daniel was terrified. Or rather, was rationally terrified. He tried to repeat to himself that Jack was about to beat him, but his body seemed to interpret things differently. Either that or he had just discovered that he had a danger kink. He would get his ass kicked and would be expelled from the SG-1 team, and what looked worse, he have to endure Jack's disgust. "I'm sorry." He said almost inaudibly.

"You better. Jacob translated it for me. You made me find that out through Jacob." Anger overflowed in his voice, so Daniel thought it was better not to say he didn't make him show the letters to Jacob.

"Jack, I swear it won't affect my performance on the team, I can be professional and..." He needed to try to save what he could, he couldn't bear losing SG-1.

"Oh Daniel, we're way past you being professional. It was sometime before you started sending me love letters in Ancient." Jack grabbed him with both hands now, forcing him against the wall. Daniel closed his eyes, preparing for the impact. With any luck it would end soon, if he was luckier still he might have a concussion and maybe even amnesia.

But the impact was quite different than he imagined. He opened his eyes to confirm what he suspected, that he could only have knocked his head so hard that he was hallucinating. It was the only explanation he could think of to why Jack's warm lips were on his. He blinked several times trying to determine if it could even be happening, and when his brain finally accepted that as a fact, Jack was pushing away disappointed. Without the support given by his hands, Daniel slid to the floor.

"Wow, one would think that after writing all that you would at least kiss me back." There was a note of pain in his voice, and he seemed not to know what to do with himself.

Daniel seemed to have forgotten the English language. He repeated Jack's words dozens of times in his mind, but couldn't understand them. It took all his concentration to respond. "You surprised me."

Jack crouched on the floor in front of him. "So this time I'll be more clear." He said running his hand lovingly on his hair and pulling him forward at the waist. "Daniel, I am going to kiss you."

That's what he did. And if Daniel's brain seemed to still have difficulties to process what was happening, this time his body reacted automatically, clinging to Jack as if his life depended on it.

"That was the reaction I was expecting." Jack said, standing up.

The part of Daniel that still doubted his value postulated one thousand hypotheses: Jack was teasing him, wanted confirmation before the attack, wanted him humiliated. But he abandoned them all, Jack wasn't like this, he wouldn't do it.

"You left me in a very complicated situation. If you want to fix that, come to my house tonight. I'm gonna make that pie you like."

He was about to open the door when Daniel recovered from the shock. "What?" Was all he could say as he stood up.

"Don't worry, I won't force you to do anything. But we need to talk about this, you and me. If we are going to make this work without disrupting the team. And if you want to do something else while you're there, we can also talk about that."

"So you aren't... I thought you were mad at me."

"Of course I am, I'll never be able to look Jacob in the eyes again, but I guess I'm used to the fact that loving you means enduring some annoying behaviors."

Daniel blushed at Jack's words. "Sorry about that, I think I needed to say what I felt, but I couldn't risk you knowing." He said lowering his eyes.

Jack come closer, gently lifting Daniel's chin with one hand. "Next time, try English. I'd love to hear everything you have to say." This time he kissed him softly, and again prepared to leave. He already had his hand on the doorknob when he turned with a smirk and completed: "Especially that last letter, Jacob said something about copulate?".

* * *

Translation of "Para dizer que te amo", also by me. Crossposted on AO3.


End file.
